NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) – The Summerville Airport now has Charleston Southern University’s Aeronautics program on the runway.
The private university recently purchased what was once Chucktown Flight Training, LLC. at the Summerville Airport along Greyback Road. Officials cut the ribbon on the new flight school Monday.
The purchase is for the university’s aeronautics program which started back in 2021. Early stages of the program included a partnership with Chucktown Flight Training. Officials remarked on the growth of the program, which started with 19 students and one faculty member to the recent count of 170 students and faculty.
Students in the Aeronautics-Private Pilot degree program are getting flight training from private piloting to flight instructing. Students can return to university after graduation to become flight instructors and gather the 1000 flight hours required by the Federal Aviation Administration to become airline pilots with a Restricted Airline Transport Pilot certification.
Lane Squires is a graduating senior in the aeronautics program at the university. Squires’ passion for flight started in high school. Squires says the change in ownership for the flight school only benefits students.
“It’s great right, because the people that we talked to at this school, the people who are educating our minds, teaching us the things, the procedures to do in the airplane, now we’re actually able to do them in the airplane,” Squires says. “If we have any questions we can take them back to the people who taught it to us.”
The graduating student says he aims to return to the university after graduation and become a flight instructor. He says it is a chance to give back to other students the skills he learned through the program.
“I would go back to the things I’ve been taught, right,” Squires says. “Safety is always No. 1… all of the other things are built around safety. If we don’t get safety right, then we’re not doing anything right.”
Officials say the program has plans for continued growth for the next school year. Students will see a new classroom and lab wing in the engineering building as soon as August.